


Step into the future

by Milli Moi (Millimoi)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 03:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8233838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millimoi/pseuds/Milli%20Moi
Summary: Natasha contemplates the past and future (set after comic series the name of the Rose- those who haven't read the comics can still read)





	

Step, lift, step, point. It was more than an art, a discipline unlike any other, because it was just that- an art with as much as discipline as any army. Step, lift, step, point. She dreaded to think how many pairs of pointe shoes she had been through over the years. The years since her brainwashing, since she was led to believe she had never been a widow. She had always found solace in dance, even before she was recruited by the Red Room, when she was a little girl, dance had been a big part of her life.   
She remembered her first visit to the ballet most vivid of all her early memories- although the memory may not have been a true memory. She remembered the grace of the Prima Ballerina, the muscles of the cavalier who accompanied her. She remembered the elegant leotards which left little to the imagination but allowed the Ballerina's to move as naturally as possible without being naked. The tutus were made so stiffly they stuck out horizontal from the Prima's waist, the leotards silky and shiny in their white colour.   
Her leotards- in those fabricated memories- had never been white or pink, they had always been glossy black. Black like the swan in Swan Lake, the alter ego; just like her.   
Step, lift, step, point.   
The music was soothing, she could disappear in the melodies, numb her mind, close the doors on the world around her. She followed the rhythm, speeding her pace, tapping her feet in tiny steps, so close together her satin pointe shoes brushed against each other in the fast movements. Pirouette.   
Some of the words she knew, learning the words after she had already learnt the movements. She widened her steps, limiting the natural movement of her hips. Ballet was about grace. It was never sexual. She took a few quick running steps and leapt, pointing her feet out as though she was a dear escaping its predators.   
Her eyes were always shut when she danced- the studio was more than big enough that she could avoid the walls. Closing her eyes, looking at black, it helped numb the mind, clear the thoughts on a rough day or to bring confidence on a good one.   
That was how she hadn't been aware of him until two hands of different temperatures grasped her waist and held her in the air.   
Without opening her eyes Natasha smirked,   
"Put me down James."   
She heard him laugh under his breath,   
"How did you know?"   
Opening her eyes and tapping down onto her pointe shoes, she couldn't help but smile at him.   
"I always know."   
He laughed once.   
"And beside, you have an extremely cold hand." He rolled his eyes, of course.   
Natasha looked at him, his blue eyes and chocolate hair, his muscular form far bulkier than her own but yet they were matched in strength. She liked to think she had more skill, more years of practise had left her the best in her field after all, but he could not be bested with that arm of his. It was made from vibranium alloy, it had a name but she had never tried to remember it. The metal was impossible to penetrate, it was something unlike any other metal, just as Steve's shield was.   
James reached for her hand, clasping it, with his metal hand, his other hand was still on her waist, his broad hand so soft she felt a shiver run through her. He ran his hand down to her hip, resting it on the prominent bone.   
His eyes were wandering and she had no idea why, he'd seen her naked enough times so the view of her in a leotard shouldn't have been anything else.   
"They are so refined," he commented in way of an explanation.   
"What are, my boobs?" Natasha commented, on,y half joking as she had no idea what else he could have been looking at.   
She shook his head, his hair flopping about his ears,   
"No, you ab muscles- its odd to see on a woman."   
"What, just because I'm a woman I can't be fit, I don't need a dick to best you." he shook his head- although he was aware Natasha knew him better than that he was wary, there was a reason she'd survived into her eighties and Bucky preferred not to see it up close.   
"No, I," he paused laughing to himself , "Steve would've killed for as much muscle as you have back when I knew him."   
Natasha took a step in to Bucky, her chest nearly brushing his (although her assets were very much flattened in the leotard)   
He automatically took a step away, before taking another step into her, placing his foot on more of an angle.   
"You dance?" Natasha asked, surprised as her James began to take the lead in a semi-waltz. He nodded,   
"Everyone did in my day-"   
"Our day, I'm not that much younger."  
"Everyone in our day did, I could do the basics, a foxtrot, a waltz, even," he lent forward,his lips skimming the lobe of her ear, "a tango,"   
Natasha smirked,   
"please, your tango could do with some work, soldat."   
"Oh yeah?"  
He pushed forwards, dipping her back suddenly so the top half of her body tilted downwards. She let her head slide backwards, her neck and back arching so he watched, his eyes gazing from her breasts up to her jaw. Then like an elastic band she snapped upright, pulling herself straight against his chest. She sashed forwards, forcing him backwards.  
"I'm sure I have the better tango mili moi,"   
He smiled, preparing another move but before he could think she lifted her leg, hooking her thigh over his hip and tucking it to his back, pressing him closer to her with the added strength of her pointe shoes. He swallowed, she smiled.   
She should've known not to become overconfident. He took her by the hips, lifting her off his own and back to the floor, taking a step between her legs and beginning to lead a fast waltz. She submitted, following his lead. He spun her, brought her into his chest. She pulled her hand from his and snaked both arms round his neck, pressing herself against his chest and thumbing the fair hairs at the back of his neck. He gripped her waist with both hands, leading them in a slower and more sensual dance.   
"Give up James?" She hissed in his ear, pausing to gently nibble his earlobe. He sighed. She picked up on the meaning of the sigh within seconds. He was irritated, she had been able to pick up on any signs of negativity since she was a young child-negativity usually meant the immature widows would be in for a beating, a beating which was considered part of their training but was really an excuse for Madame B to lash out. James had never been one for that, he had been rough with her- very rough in some situations- but other than sex and sparing new as gentle. He rarely showed signs of anything like this. She tilted her head, letting him know she was questioning. He took a breath,   
"Do you ever stop flirting Natalia?"   
She didn't know how to reply. Technically the answer was no- she only knew flirting, she understood that language better than she understood normal English. She had been taught to flirt since she was a child, talk to talk politics and threats. She was never taught the real language of love and the language of friendship.   
Although friendship was a language she had never understood, love was a language she had forgotten. A language she had known with Nikolai, that she had began to find again through James in the fifties. It had been a long time, the words were muddled, the accents and apostrophes lost. Love was something she had only known as a child.  
Now, James was back; and everything was changing.   
"It's Natasha, now," she reminded him but said nothing more. They danced in silence for a moment, he twirled her again. She rested her little hand on his broad chest.   
He was strong, so strong in physique but weak in mind. He was stuck in the past, just as his best friend was.   
James broke the silence,   
"What happened, in Russia?"   
Natasha was caught off guard, she hadn't known how much he knew of the past events but she hadn't expected him to know that much. She masked her shock well, well enough that James couldn't see through it. He was good, but not as good as her.   
Natasha shrugged, shaking her head,   
"Nothing, just the usual work, I needed to track down the attacker, make sure they paid."   
She felt her mouth drier when she swallowed, she never had any qualms lying- she had been rewarded for being a good liar in her younger years- but lying to James, lying to the person she could trust, there was almost a conscience shouting at her, almost that little voice she so rarely heard these days. She knew James had been there, been through everything she had. James had been beaten, tortured and brainwashed before being placed on cryogenic sleep until Department X felt like defrosting him and using his assets. They may have had different assets, different areas of play, but still they knew things no others alive could understand.   
Nikolai, he had once been the one good thing in her life, and Rose, Rose was going to make everything better, everything right. Natasha was going to go on the run, find her own life with Nikolai. Nikolai had been her all, her knight in shining armour. Then in a small village in Slovakia had made a little girl grow up.   
James arrived, just as she had needed him. He may not have been the knight in shinning armour every little girl wanted but he had been her cavalier to her prima ballerina, he had been her staff to lean on, the hand up she needed. He let her survive the Rose; and he would never know of its existence.   
Yet, here was the moment- a chance for her to reveal all- but she didn't grab it with both hands. She ignored it. The past was in the past, and there it should stay. Rose would remain buried under the snow and ice in Dobročsky.   
"James," Natasha smiled, lifting her hand to stroke his slightly stumbled cheek. She stretched upwards on her point shoes, reaching his face enough to tilt his chin with a crooked finger and kissed his lips softly.   
He responded, kissing her in return; soft, sweet.   
She felt her heart flutter, flutter with excitement and thrill but also with love, with desire the way it used to flutter for Nikolai, for her future with Rose. James was here now, she crouched to the floor, reaching for the ribbons of her traditional pointe shoes.   
"What are you doing?"   
She smiled to herself- a sad smile, a smile of letting go. She glanced at James; sighed.   
"Things, happened- in Dobročsky- things I will never talk about again. The past stays in our past, James. It is time to look fondly back on my childhood, on my younger years, and," she pulled the shoes off, letting them clatter on the floor, she jumped to her feet in one fluid motion, standing flush against James. "Follow that future, with you."


End file.
